Strength training beginner! HELP!

what's your local gym got in terms of equipment? What kind of free weights?

Forget the word "tone". It's not a real thing. All it means is your muscles showing more clearly through your fat in skin, so basically, it's losing fat.

What kind of free weights does your gym have? Those are the ones you want to get on to start a lifetime of good strength training habits. Don't bother with weight machines unless you have an injury or something

I'm with you on not really knowing how to do it but try NEWO by jonathon roche. He has a free list of simple exercises to get started without a gym or weights.

Good Luck!!

As mentioned, check out this book:

New Rules of Lifting for Women

http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Rules-Lifting-Women/dp/1583333398/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334188282&sr=8-1

You should start with light weights initially working up to 3 sets of exercise for each muscle group. If your gym offers personal training, you might at least go for one session to get them to show you how to lift properly. If not, there is a video series I recommend by Kathy Smith called Secrets to a Great Upper Body and Secrets to a Great Lower Body. She is great for instruction and she doesn't have an annoying voice like some of the others. Once you learn the moves you could take it to the gym. I bet you'd be able to start with 5 lb weights since you've been doing zumba. You're bound to be fit! Good luck! Weight training has been the thing that has made the most difference in my weight loss at my age.

It is good to see something different then the usual Im going to eat 700 calories to lose weight. GOOD JOB for wanting to do strength training. It is daunting at first to begin weight training for the first time but it is actually quite fun, and people around you at the weight racks are generally friendly and ready to help if you ask nicely enough. (DO NOT INTERRUPT THEIR WORKOUTS, chat with them between their breaks and dont talk too long either cause alot of people like me time their breaks to be 1 min between sets. Other than that people are very nice )

What most of us do normally is do 3 day splits, 4 day splits. But for the time being that may be a little too hard at this point so try doing some FULL BODY workouts. This pretty much means do alot of compound exercises that work multiple muscle groups and work all your body well, but not too heavily. Once your body is USED to lifting weights (I would give it about 3 weeks to a month) then you can think about advancing to split days where you do ALOT more sets for a body group so its more intense. Start off easy and advance your way up, if you try to do the more complicated and harder stuff from the get go, injuries are on the way!

Mix in some of these into your strength routines,
bench presses (1 day can be flat, another day can be incline)
shoulder/military presses (1 day can be seated, another day can be standing up)
deadlifts (normal and stiff leg dead lifts on different days.) ON THIS ONE PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT TRY TO DO THIS UNLESS SOMEONE WHO KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING SHOW YOU AND YOU GET IT. THIS IS VERY VERY DANGEROUS IF YOU HAVE BAD FORM BUT AMAZING FOR YOUR BODY WITH GOOD FORM!
bicep curls (pretty basic stuff, you can use dumbbells or barbells, seated or standing. whatever rocks your boat basically)
bodyweight dips (superset this with bicep curls and feel the BURN!)
squats (barbell or dumbbell, suggest using barbell, but AGAIN same note with deadlifts. get someone to show you)
shoulder shrugs

To start off I would say do about 3 sets of each exercise per strength routine. eg: 3 sets bench press (take a pick), shoulder press (again take a pick) dead lifts( be careful and safe) bicep curls (choices choices choices) dips shoulder shrugs etc.

Order your routine's exercise based on how much effort you need to put in. For example deadlifts, squats and bench presses generally always go first thing cause they requires the most energy and effort. Last tip, always finish up with some core work. This does not mean do a zillion situps and crunches. It means do something simple like 20 sec of reverse crunches + 20 sec of bicycle running (i cant remember whats it called), then break for 20 secs then repeat again, for 4 sets.

Applause to you for incorporating strength training, whichever way you choose to do it. You'll never, ever regret it. :flowerforyou:

bump

Do this:

1. Lift as heavy as you can.
2. Eat clean with lots of protein
3. Sleep at least 8 hours a night.
4. Use as much free weights as possible.

I would start with a three day split, ful body mon, wed, fri.